


honey, that's how it sleeps

by piggy09



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 04:51:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7208510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Helena stays in the woods and heals for a little while.</p>
            </blockquote>





	honey, that's how it sleeps

**Author's Note:**

> I love Helena _so_ much, so much, and I want her to be happy. She deserves this quiet.

When Helena cuts open the deer with her good sharp knife its insides spill into the snow and this is good, this is good, this is alright. Steam rises from the belly of the deer. Its eyes are blank and open. This is good, this is good, this is good, this is alright.

The first time she shot a deer – the first time, but not the first deer – she watched it fall to the ground and her own knees buckled too. She stayed standing, for her babies. For the little children inside of her who need meat to live. This is good, alright, good, good, good.

When she crossed the snow she watched the deer choking on its own blood. She’d aimed for the throat and not the head. She did not know the workings of deer skulls, how thick they were, whether or not they would shatter under the good sharp points of her good sharp arrows. She was stupid. She was stupid, and the deer was looking at her with eyes all wide and dark. The way everything’s eyes get, when they die. Exactly the same.

Helena had reached out, and snapped its neck. This felt like a sort of kindness. At least she thought it was. She wasn’t really sure.

* * *

The first time and the first deer went like this.

Helena stumbled out from behind a tree and aimed for the throat with her knife and missed. Blood all over. All over Alison Hendrix’s nice vest, and her nice shirt, and her nice sweater, and all over Helena too.

The deer screamed when it died and Helena didn’t know deer did that, she didn’t _know_ , no one told her, she is learning this one single small step at a time and she wishes that—

She petted the deer’s head as it died and babbled to it, frantic nothings. _Shh shh shh shh little Bambi, brave olen’, I am here, I am here, none of you will go to waste._ Blood in the snow. It steamed. Just Helena – the deer – all that steam, all that blood. But it died eventually. She knelt there with it, for a long time, until all the steam had cooled and its heart had finally stopped beating. She kept her hand on its skull, between its eyes.

* * *

After Helena cuts open the deer and takes care of the meat and takes care of the parts-that-are-not-meat, she goes home. It smells like Helena inside of her home, and also like garbage, and also like old meat and bones. This is what a home smells like; Helena knows this, because this home is hers.

(Also, it maybe smells a little bit like the candle she stole from Alison’s house. But only slightly.)

(Also only slightly like the laundry-detergent-pod. Helena still does not know what laundry-detergent-pods are, or how they make clothes clean, but they smell nice and they are nice to hold and if she closes her eyes and holds it to her face and breathes in she can feel the cold clean air of Alison’s house. And that is nice, sometimes, to remember.)

Helena sits on the stool and holds her breath while her babies float in circles. She presses a hand to her belly – I am still here, I have not left. I will not leave you. They settle as they remember this, and Helena sighs and pulls out her phone.

She can only charge it every few days, when she goes to the ranger station and pokes in the garbage for treasures other people have left. So she doesn’t leave it on for long. She just taps the green box that lets her see the messages other people have sent her. Presses her lips together and reads.

Sarah

Monday, 9:07am

>Hope youre doin okay. I know you said don’t worry but i do. Hope the babies aren’t kicking you too much

Helena has read this message….mm, maybe fourteen times. It was only sent a few days ago. Helena is smart, and Gemma and Oscar are smart and good with phones: she has the “Read-receipts” turned off, so Sarah can’t know that she sees. But she does. She sees.

>Dear Sarah. Today more little bunnies walked into my traps and I ate one of them for lunchings. There was nobody in the park today Sarah. The world is very quiet. I do not think you would like it here you are too loud. But you could sit in my home with me. It is not as quiet there. The bags make shh sounds when the wind blows which is almost always. My babies kick a lot. I am worried that they will come out of me and they will hate each other. Sarah did you hate me at first. Sarah do you hate me now. Sarah

Helena lets out an angry sound, and deletes the whole message. She tries to write letters to Sarah every day, but there is no point to doing that if they are all this sad. She blows out a breath through her lips and closes the green message-box. She stares at the wall and wonders what to do. It is hours before the sun sets, and she has enough food to last a long time. She does not need to go hunting anymore today.

She sighs again, through her teeth – it is so _quiet_ , here! – and turns her phone back on. It tells her 84%, and the little box in the top corner is very full, so it is alright for her to look at her phone again.

Sarah

Monday, 9:07am

>Hope youre doin okay. I know you said don’t worry but i do. Hope the babies aren’t kicking you too much

She puts her thumb on the square that says “D” and presses down.

>Dear Sarah. Sometimes I am afraid that my babies are not eating enough fruits and vegetables. They are hard to find in this park. I think babies need fruits and vegetables to grow big. But I did not eat fruits and vegetables for many years and I can kill deer. All deer eat is grass and I think grass is a vegetable. So maybe I should not worry about this.

There. That’s a good letter. Helena nods at it, bobbing her head, and then closes the message box and turns off her phone again.

* * *

>Dear Sarah tody I killed a deer and it screamed no one told me the deer would scream and I had forgotten what it was like to make something beautifl scream but Sarah it still hurts just as much as it did before how do I make it stop hurting how do I get better when everything screams

>Dear Sarah. I realized that. If you press the space bar many times. It ends a sentence for you. The phone Tomas. Gave me had buttons so I did not know. Phones did this. I like it

>Deer S

>Dear Sarah. I miss Snickers bars.

>Dear Sarah. I only kill what I need to kill to survive. I do not think that makes me a monster.

>Dear Sarah. Today I was awake when the sun rose and it made the snow pink and gold. I didn’t think about you or Kira or Sentra Alison or anything else that is soft and pink. I just watched the snow. Sarah do you think this is healing. Sarah do you think this is what healing is like.

* * *

There are still hours and hours to go before the sun sets. Helena gets up from her stool, puts her phone back in its safe place, and goes outside.

The world is so still, like it’s holding its breath. Like it’s done breathing for a little while; like it’s pulled up its snow blanket over itself and is ready to sleep until spring. Helena understands. Helena knows. She takes her water bottle (Alison’s water bottle) (but now: hers) and stuffs some dried rabbit-meat in her pocket and goes out walking.

There was more snowfall last night, the sound of it piling up around Helena’s home enough to send her to sleep. That means this morning all of Helena’s footprints are gone when she goes walking. This is just another thing about the park that makes her happy – and happy in a way that is strange to her, like a violent flower blooming in her chest. Like the way you cut a deer’s belly, and all the good soft warm parts of it spill out red into the snow. Yes. Like that.

But here is what makes her happy: when the snow falls, Helena is erased. She could walk over every single part of this park, but if the snow fell it would be like she had never been there at all. There is something that is a comfort, in that. She can’t hurt the ground. She can’t be permanent.

There is something good, she thinks, in not being permanent. She wishes she could figure out what it was.

* * *

Sarah

Monday, 9:07am

>Hope youre doin okay. I know you said don’t worry but i do. Hope the babies aren’t kicking you too much

* * *

She walks and walks and walks until she finds the river for bathing and also for water and also for sitting at the edge of it and not thinking about very much. Helena bathed a few days ago, but she fills up Alison’s-but-now-her water bottle and sits by the edge of the water. There are chunks of ice in it, but it’s still going. It’s still flowing towards the sea. Helena drinks cold _cold_ water from the bottle and gnaws on a piece of rabbit meat. It tastes like something else’s life. She’s happy.

Oh!

She’s _happy_.

Sometimes she remembers this, and it’s always a surprise to her. She is happy here. Right here, by the water, with nowhere to go and nothing to be: she is happy. She could sit here until the dark time comes and that would be alright. She could stand up and walk deeper and deeper into the woods and that would be alright. She could scream at the top of her lungs and—

Oh, no, that would make the sharp-toothed things take notice. Maybe not the screamings. But the rest of it: all alright. There is no one here to tell her what to do or who to be or remind her of the person they are shaping her into. There is only the quiet. There is only Helena, and the quiet.

Helena takes another bite, and watches the river flow. She thinks it’s going to be a good day.

* * *

She sits there for a long time. The sun goes down, but not in a way like giving up.

* * *

In the golden-sunset light Helena stands up, breaks the rest of the rabbit-meat into small pieces, and throws it into the water for whatever fish are still alive. She has not tried catching fish! It makes her curious. She _could_ , probably. She wanted to hunt without using a gun and so she figured out how to make a bow and arrow. She caught a fox in one of her traps and so she figured out how to cook fox. She is learning how to cut open animals, what parts are good to save, how long it takes for the bugs to eat all the flesh from bones until they are bleached white. She could learn fish too. She doesn’t think it would be hard.

But not today, not yet, not with the sun setting and Helena’s eyelids pulling down. Instead she grabs her water bottle and turns around to watch the woods. She can’t see her home from here, but that’s alright. She always knows where home can be found.

She picks a direction and starts walking. The only sound is her feet through the snow, and her own good breathing: in – out – in.

* * *

>Dear Sarah. Inside of me it feels like a lake or maybe a sunrise. I wish you could feel this way too. If I could share this with you I would. I want to share it with everybody. I want everybody to be happy.

>Dear Sarah. I am happy.

* * *

It’s dark when she gets home. Helena lets herself in, collapses with a sigh in the pile of fur and blankets that is her bed now. She should start a fire, so that she will stay warm. She should. She should.

(She built this home herself. It wasn’t anything before she got here. It needed her to grow.)

With a sigh she pulls herself over to the fire pit, starts a fire. Her home gets warm quickly, and the firelight dances on the walls. Helena makes a butterfly out of her hands, sends its shadow flapping along the inside-walls. Loneliness bites once at the pit of her throat with sharp little teeth and then does not bite her anymore. Helena shushes it, smoothing one hand over her stomach. She would say something, but she has not said any words today and she does not want to smash the silence. Instead she just hums to her belly – no songs that she knows, that she used to know. She’s making up new ones: wordless things that sound like rivers, that sound like bowstrings pulling back, that sound like sunrise.

Here is how sunrise sounds, if you were wondering. _Hm-mm-mmmm, mm-mm-mm-mm-mmmmm. Mm-mm-mmmmm, mmmmm—_

* * *

Helena’s babies fall asleep, and Helena pulls off her shoes and puts them neatly by the door. She takes off her hat. She takes off her gloves. She takes off her jacket. She curls up into a ball, and pulls the furs and blankets over her body. Slowly, a little bit at a time, she starts getting warm.

Outside Helena’s home the snow is falling again. It sounds like nothing Helena has ever known, and that is good. Helena’s belly is full. Helena is warm. Sarah hopes Helena’s babies aren’t kicking too much. By the time Helena wakes up, all of the footprints she’s left will be gone.

Helena closes her eyes and falls asleep. She doesn’t dream about anything.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't give it a hand, offer it a soul  
> Honey, make this easy  
> Leave it to the land, this is what it knows  
> Honey, that's how it sleeps
> 
> Don't let it in with no intention to keep it  
> Jesus Christ! Don't be kind to it  
> Honey, don't feed it - it will come back  
> \--"It Will Come Back," Hozier
> 
> I love this song for Helena and I love this verse for this fic so even if this is...not the most applicable song for this scenario, I will proudly paste it on her anyways.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


End file.
